Richard Salsman & Robert Tracinski - Conservatives and Nationalism

Speaker 0 00:00:00 I'm Scott Schiff with the Atlas Society. I'm very pleased to introduce two of our top Atlas Society intellectuals. Uh, it's actually gonna be Rob Tru Zinsky being interviewed by Richard Salzman, discussing conservatives and nationalism. Uh, it's an expanded format, scheduled to go 90 minutes so they can do a deeper dive, uh, after they've done, you know, so many questions. We definitely want your participation, so we'll bring you up. You can just raise your hands. Uh, after they get through their first, uh, set of questions, uh, we ask you to share the room. This should be a good topic. Uh, thanks everyone for being here. Richard, I'll throw it to you. Speaker 1 00:00:42 Thank you, Scott, um, for organizing this and the Atlas Society. Rob, I've really been looking forward to this. I know you've written so much about it, thought so much about it. I think you're influential in this space. Um, now you normally at the a Rob, you can you hear me? I just wanna make sure you can hear me. Speaker 2 00:00:59 I can hear you just fine. Speaker 1 00:01:01 But you know, we usually do this at the end, but I would rather do in the beginning, let the audience know where to find your work. I know you're at a symposium and disc. Well just let people know how to get to your work before we start in. Speaker 2 00:01:14 Well, the main place to go is probably the TKI letter. It's trein letter.subs.com. It's by Subs newsletter. It's where I post pretty much everything I write somewhere else is linked to there or described there, as well as my general coverage in the news. And then symposium is also another subs newsletter symposium.dot com. And that's one where I focus on political liberalism in this very broad sense. Uh, you know, and, and this is something we're gonna get into today of, you know, the, all these words like liberalism and conservatism, have all these different meanings that are used interchangeably when they're not interchangeable. So, liberalism in this sense, means advocacy of a free society and trying to foster conversations, uh, about that, uh, among people of different persuasions. Speaker 1 00:01:59 Great. And, and since conservatism is typically, uh, uh, put on the right, the right, so to speak, versus the left, there's also Rob, you know, an interesting engagement over the years with Ayn Rand and Objectivism and conservatism. So, yeah, I think at some point I'll ask you what you think of. I think it was back in 1960, she wrote something called Conservatism. An Obituary, which ended up as a chapter, a chapter in, uh, capitalism, the Unknown Ideal 1967. But that, that was long ago and far away. It's still relevant, I think. But why don't we start with this. Our topic is conservatism and nationalism. Sometimes you hear them described as national conservatives or conservative nationalists, sometimes Christian nationalists. If you could, you know, kind of unpack or tell us your over art 30,000 feet, you know, view of, before we dig into the deepness, what is this group or this movement and your assessment of it just Speaker 2 00:02:58 Broadly? Yeah. So I wanna start with a little bit of the context of what's been going on in politics in the last couple decades. Good. And then go into talking about what does nationalism mean? Cause it's one of these, I it's, you know, we've got three terms I think we have to talk about today. Nationalism, conservatism and liberalism that have these sort of varied in confusing meanings. So let's start though with the context, which is, you know, the big whipsaw from my perspective, especially the big whipsaw of American politics in the last couple decades, is that about 10 to 12 years ago, 13, probably 13 to 14 years ago now, we had the Tea party movement. You know, this is the, the backlash to the bailouts and the, you know, the financial crisis. We had the bailouts, then we had the backlash to the bailouts, which is the Tea Party movement, which was a very small government libertarian issue. Speaker 2 00:03:48 I mean, libertarian in this, well, that's a fourth term that has various meanings, but, uh, libertarian in the sense of being very free market, very proli. And there was this sort of, a lot of people who were libertarian leaning in the sense of not being really conservatives, but being more freewheeling and, and pro pro more consistently proli. There was this sort of rap rosh sch mob between conservatism and libertarianism. And so the went to a very small government, very proli sort of outlook, uh, that influenced the right and influenced the Republican party. And the influence was partly because it won a couple elections, right? So they're mostly off term congressional elections. Uh, so 2010, 2014 big wave elections, uh, that brought, you know, that changed the, the, uh, congress to turn it against the big government Obama agenda. So there was this sort of more libertarian lurch that the right went, it went towards it for, for a 5, 4, 4 or five or six years. Speaker 2 00:04:50 And then starting in 2015, 2016, there was a more na there's been a, a very much opposite move. And I think it's a backlash to that which is the, a nationalist move that is very non libertarian and anti libertarian. Uh, and very much the idea, there's a lot of complaints among the, I think there was a sort of a religious conservative wing, and I heard a lot of complaints about how well look, you know, these, these libertarians got everything they wanted out of, you know, they got the tax cuts and everything they wanted, but what did we get? We got gay marriage, we got all the stuff that's, again, you know, we lost everything on our agenda. So they were very resentful of that. And the idea is we should start reasserting the, the Christ, the, the, the, the conservative moral social agenda, uh, against and, and, and basically reject an alliance with these more libertarian people. Speaker 2 00:05:42 All right. So let's talk about what nationalism means then in this sort of, cuz nationalism is the term that came to be used for this. Yeah. So nationalism is one of these weird words, has three big meanings. That's the way it's used, which is for, for the political scientist, nationalism refers to the idea that the nation state is the best form of organization for, for, uh, of political organization. Now, you might say, well, of course it's the nation state. What el what else would it be? Well, so you have to ask as opposed to what, so, you know, when national, uh, the nation state sort of first arose as a political entity I, in, in the, like the 16 hundreds and 17 hundreds, it was as opposed to the previous sort of feudal system where you had all these little principalities and these little Duke dumbs and Aris autocracies and power was sort of spread out and amongst all these little small groups. Speaker 2 00:06:35 And the idea was, no, it's better if we have these large nation states. And then you have a system where each nation state has a certain, uh, sovereignty and territorial integrity. And in theory, we're not gonna, they're not always going to be invading each other. And of course, that theory didn't always work out. Um, so, uh, now in a modern context, the nation state as a political system, so nationalism, the advocacy of the nation state as opposed to what means usually as opposed to international organizations, as opposed to us all being, you know, uh, every country in Europe being brought into the, into the European Union, or all of us being brought under the UN or something like that. So it's this idea that we know the nation state is the proper, um, uh, political unit. And so that's, that's one version of nationalism, but it's a fairly narrow political scientist version cuz it, you know, it doesn't tell you what kind of nation state you're going to have. Speaker 2 00:07:28 It just says we should have a nation state and doesn't tell you what the organizing principles of each state would be. Uh, so it's more an international relations, you know, how, how countries relate to each other, not what goes on inside of them. The second version of nationalism, which I'm gonna dispense with briefly, is national is also used to refer to people who are advocates for one particular nation state. Right? So if you had, um, you know, Serbian nationalists or I, I'm trying to think of, you know, where you have countries or if you had a, um, a burial nationalist or a, uh, uh, you know, in inside Russia there are all these little different, uh, nation states that were incorporated inside the Soviet Union. And in the fall of the Soviet Union, you had all these places asserted their independence. You know, all these central Asian countries, all these, uh, um, uh, Eastern European countries asserted their independence. Speaker 2 00:08:20 They have the Baltic states. And so then you have a nationalist being somebody saying, this state, this particular country of mine should be independent. So it's not necessarily a general thing, it's a, it's oriented towards one particular state that they think should be, should have its independence. Now the third sense of nationalism, though, is the one that I think is becoming relevant now, which is the idea that the nation is the fundamental unit of politics. That everything in that, that the politics should not be organized around the individual. It should be organized around the nation. And that the good of the nation, the good of the nation as a whole, should be the primary focus of politics. And so, as opposed to, uh, and this is, you know, very much used says in the sense that, you know, as opposed to individual rights, as opposed to us all being atomized individuals, they like to say they were atomized. Um, as opposed to us all being atomized individuals, each pursuing his own goals, we should all be organized somehow to be oriented towards the common good of the nation as a whole and the greatness of the nation as a whole. So this is a, a particular view of government that basically says it's the nation as a whole. That is the main unit that should be asserting itself in politics. And that that everything in politics should be organized around the greatness and advancement and cohesion and, and unity of the nation as a whole. Speaker 1 00:09:50 Yeah. Now, Ron, let me ask you, uh, Rob, this Trichotomy is very helpful that you have here. The nation state is the best former political organization. Uh, your second point about, well, then there's an argument, well, particular nation states are, are better than others. And then this last point about the stress of the nation as the unit of account, uh, unit of, uh, focus or value versus the individual. Wh where in this fits the kind of popular view? We hear that a nation is something like this sounds more cultural, I think. Yeah, a nation is a group of, a group of people that share, uh, you know, the typical litany. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, they share common values, history, culture, religion, maybe ethnicity. And, and it's, and the, and the role of the state seems to be something like states won't do well or survive or unless they conform in some way to this, this shared, uh, group of things, if you will. I, I remember, remember when Iraq broke up into three different after war and, and someone suggested there should be three different states reflecting the three different, uh, religions or groups or something. So speak a little bit about what about that concept? Is that a, is that a legitimate concept separate from the state, but yet related to whether there should be a nation state? Speaker 2 00:11:14 Yeah, that's, that's an interesting question. So, yeah. And by the way, the, the ironic very ironically, the someone who suggested breaking Iraq apart into three separate states was Joe Biden. Was Speaker 1 00:11:22 Biden. Yes, I know, I remember that. I know, yeah. Speaker 2 00:11:25 It was a particularly bad idea because it wasn't going, he, his is his plan for somehow ending the war. And of course it was a plan for, uh, for taking the war up to 11. Right. Dialing it up to 11. Yeah. Because if you, what was the first thing these three eth sort of religious states were going to be doing is they're gonna be fighting each other for territory. Speaker 1 00:11:45 Yeah, yeah. But it, but it, but, but it was like, it, it sounded, it was like plausible to those who say there has to be some kind of correspondence between, and remember when Yugoslavia broke up as well? It was, it was thought that, uh, so many divisions, so much balkanization that when Tito ran the place, um, you could, uh, suppress all these differences. But once the authoritarianism goes away, it splits into pieces. Anyway, go, go ahead. Speaker 2 00:12:10 Yo Yugoslavia is a happier example of that where, um, after the initial fighting in the nineties, they have managed to sort of, you know, the Croats aren't fighting the bon arons who aren't fighting the, uh, you know, they're not all trying to kill each other anymore. Uh, there's a little p haha going on with Kosovo right now, but that, you know, we'll see how that shapes out. But, um, yeah, the, the, so the thing is, so the, the, there's a sort of a more gentile version of nationalism that says, well, look, we should have a nation, which should have some unity, but doesn't go so far as to say. And the question is, well, how do you define that unity? Right? What is the, what is the defining characteristic that unifies the country? What is it that's supposed to pull us all together and give us a common identity that we can then, that, you know, that common identity can be the thing politics is organized around? Speaker 2 00:12:59 Well, ultimately I think the answer there, there are two answers you can give. And what is the traditional American answer, which is, well, we have an American creed, you know, we have a civic creed. Or sometimes they use the term civic religion, and you know, what pulls America together as the principles of the Declaration of Independence? And, you know, also maybe certain cultural things, you know, so if you read your Tocqueville, you know, he talks about how the Americans differ from everybody else that, you know, we're enterprising and we're entrepreneurial. And you talked about the different attitudes that Americans tend to have, right? So you could have the idea that, well, we have a common creed, and it doesn't matter what race or religion you are, as long as you have this creed and you agree with this creed, you are an American. And that's been for a long time, been the American answer mean that this is our response to mass immigration of, you know, when the Tre Zinski's and, and, uh, by, you know, the, the Ross, the, the, um, O'Rourke, my Irish side, when all the Irish Irish and the Polish and the Jews and all these people came over, you know, 120 years ago, we had this question, well, how do we have a unified American? Speaker 2 00:14:02 How do we assimilate these people? How do we have a, a unified American entity? The answer was, well, we have certain ideas and attitudes and a culture that we, that we all, uh, embrace. However, among the sort of more hardcore nationalist conservatives one, and especially among, and especially as you get off towards, even beyond them to the alt-right, there's this mocking thing that you, you know, so those of us who, who uphold that old creed say, well, America is an idea, and they, uh, keep the nationalists, the hardcore nationalists keep score in this, say, America is not an idea. It's a people, it's a place. And so when you say if it's, if you say, America's not an idea, it's a people. And you know, if you try to define nationalism in that way, you're going to start moving inexorably towards it. An eth if it's an, it's an ethnicity, right? Because, you know, if it's not an idea, what is it going to be? Well, it's going to be some quality we have that is, you know, non ideological. So it's going to be a specific kind of people, uh, uh, ethnically, you know, and it could be Northern Europeans or or what have you who are concerning. Yeah. And Speaker 1 00:15:08 On, and rob on, on that, on that score, Rob, fair to say that if it's ideas, then it's something you assimilate, you come and you accept, you choose, yeah. You endorse. Whereas the ethnicity angle is, well, that's your hereditary, uh, lineage. That's not something chosen. That's a big difference, isn't it? Speaker 2 00:15:26 Yeah. Yeah. Uh, and, and you know, the thing is, the other thing about the ethnicity approaches is it's a, it's a, a prescription for a lot of trouble. So I remember, um, I think that's right after the invasion, uh, the, the r when the Russians invaded, um, uh, Ukraine, a year and a half or so ago, one of the first countries to come out saying this is a bad idea was like, Kenya. And I said, why, why there, why are the Kenyans worked up about this? And then they talked about how bad, how bad an idea it was to justify an invasion based on ethnicity. And I realized that Africa is another place in the world where there are all sorts of national borders, right. That are drawn, that are not drawn neatly Yeah. To, corresponds to where the ethnic borders are <laugh>. Yeah, yeah. Speaker 2 00:16:09 You know, and this is this printed problem in Europe forever and then, and led to wars in Europe. And it's a problem in a lot of places in the world where you have, uh, you, you have several different ethnicities living in amongst, with each other, amongst each other in a, in, in, in countries. And you know, the borders that have often been drawn, you know, by colonial authorities or after, as a result, as a compromise at the end of a war or however it is that these things evolve, that they do not, the borders between countries are not neatly drawn across ethnic lines. So the more you make ethnicity into the defining characteristic of a nation, the more you're, you're, you're really signing up for a lot of trouble. And of course, you know, religion as well, just, you know, nobody's ever fought war is about religion. Speaker 2 00:16:53 Uh, <laugh>. Uh, so, uh, to, to give you an idea about how serious some of the, now the, the nationalist conservatives, the mainstream, the more mainstream national conservatives are very shy about talking about the ethnicity angle. And it's because they're more about, they're more about emphasizing their religion angle that tradit a traditional, basically traditional morality or traditional social customs and morality is, is what they define it more as. And by traditional, they generally mean in line with their religious convictions. So it's, um, uh, theam has, uh, for example, who's one of his, uh, an Israeli theorist, but who've made the case for nationalism. And he's been very influential on the American nationalist conservatives. And they had a conference about a year or ago where, where they, one of the things that they argued for one of the platform pointed, put forth a sort of ideological or, or political platform. Speaker 2 00:17:49 And one of the elements was where a Christian majority exists, the institutions of the nation should be Christian. So, you know, basically saying, arguing against separation or church and state that a country that has a Christian majority, uh, pop by population should have a government that embraces and promotes and, um, you know, is not separated from, uh, Christian religious views. Yeah. And so now it's interesting that has, is doing it, saying where a Christian majority exists because he comes from Israel, where what he's trying to say is, in Israel, a Jewish majority exists, so we should have a Jewish state. And in America, Christian majority exists. So we should have a Christian seat, essentially. Um, and this has been one of the things that's been brought up, and I think that's the mainstream, you know, on the edges of nationalist conservatism, you get into sort of the, the overlap you get with the alt right, where they start hitting the ethnic and, and racial angle of things. Speaker 2 00:18:43 But with the more mainstream types, it's more about the sort of the religious culture. And it's a, you know, now it's sort of a, a general Christian viewpoint, although if you follow them closely, and I, I call, I watched them on Twitter, you'll see them start going caber dogs between the Catholics and the Protestants. You know, cuz that's, that's the next stage. Right. Where would you have, if you have the government getting involved in religion, the next stage is that the Catholics and Protestants are gonna fight each other over which version of Christianity it is. Speaker 1 00:19:13 Yeah. Now this, uh, reminds me of an essay you wrote, um, oh, five years ago. Now, dear conservatives, the enlightenment is not the enemy. Speak a little bit Rob, about the, I guess, conservative broadly, but you, the, the current crop, the nationalist, what is their interpretation of the enlightenment or, or call it misinterpretation and, um, what, what, what are they so afraid of? Speaker 2 00:19:41 Well, I think they're, so, they, they look at it and they say, well, you know, enlightenment, the enlightenment, um, advocated reason over faith. Yeah. Because it's one of the major I strings in the Enlightenment was now it's, it's actually a little less simple than that because there was a version of Christianity and the Enlightenment that was very influential in particularly in, in, in Britain and, and this, particularly in America that was this sort of halfway house between Chris, between, between religious traditionalism and atheism. You know, it was, it was a, a viewpoint that basically tried to make a very enlightenment approach, which has tried to make reason, uh, compatible with religion. Yeah. So this is, you know, when, when Thomas Jefferson says, uh, you know, question with boldness, even the existence of God for if there be one, he must more approve the homage of reason than of blindfolded faith. Speaker 2 00:20:34 You say the idea is God wants us to be rational. He wants us to believe in him on rational grounds, not on, not on blind faith. That is a very much the, the, the religious view of the time that held sway in America. But so the backlash against that, the sort of anti enlightenment backlash, was that this was going to cause this is, you know, going to destroy Christianity. So we needed to have, we needed to preserve room for faith. You know, that Emmanuel Cont was sort of the, you know, philosophically the founder of this, we said he found it necessary to deny reason in order to make room for faith. So the big crisis of the late enlightenment was religion's on its way out if this happens. And therefore, you know, we have to somehow find a way to preserve, to preserve room for religion by denying the, the, uh, ability of reason to solve these problems. Speaker 2 00:21:26 Now, the other aspect of this that, that the nationalist conservatives and the religious conservatives have taken advantage of and have reacted to is that one of the failures that happened, especially in the 19th century following on from the Enlightenment, is there were a bunch of secular, supposedly secular ideologies that sprung up, right. That were anti enlightenment. We were also anti enlightenment. They were equally anti enlightenment like Marxism, where, you know, the, it is very much against individualism, very much against individual rights, very much against, even against, you know, it, it dress itself up as being scientific, but was also against the individual use of reason. Because you're supposed to, you know, reason was supposed to be dictated by your economic status. You know, they had this idea of you, you know, you can't use bourge wild logic. You have to use pro proletarian logic. And so, you know, your, your economic and your economic and political positions had to dictate what, what, what, how you even think in the first place. Speaker 2 00:22:27 And that's something that's become very much, you know, is the, the central idea of today's, what we call wokeness, is very much the idea that you know who you are and what eth you know, what what your racial and ethnic and uh, uh, you know, uh, what, what all these different intersectional categories you belong to that determines how you see the world and what you regard as truth. So the, the, the religious conservatives looked at that and say, well, look, this is where reason leads you, it leads you to this anarchy and chaos and subjectivism. And that's the, that's the result of the enlightenment. Now they're completely wrong. Cuz the, that was not the resulting the enlightenment. That was a separate strain of anti enlightenment thought that came out of the 19th century as the backlash, I guess. The enlightenment. Yeah. But it's, you know, but that them, the excuse to say, therefore the enlightenment ruined everything. Speaker 2 00:23:18 And therefore, and we need to go back to a pre enlightenment, back to a religious, a religious foundation for everything. And, you know, it's, it's the strongest argument they have. Because if you want to make the case that, look, we don't need religion. We can use reason to, to settle our differences and to come up with a, a basis for a free society. If you look at <laugh> now, if, if you look at the actual results, we actually have mostly, you know, we've achieved that to a very great extent, a far greater extent that you might expect. Cause you know, we have, there's more free societies say than there've ever been. There's fewer wars right now than there have been through a lot of human history. So sort of on the ground level as how people live their individual lives. We've actually made good on a lot of that. But if you look at, you know, the intellectuals and especially the more utopian, far left intellectuals, they made a mess of it. They, they screwed up the whole <laugh>. The, the whole idea of we can use reason and, and come up with secular ideologies that will, that will provide, provide a va a basis for a society. They messed that up. They did not make good on that promise. Speaker 1 00:24:22 Yeah. You mentioned, uh, IAM Hasani, uh, earlier his book, uh, the Virtue of Nationalism 2018, I think, um, the ca uh, more recently Rich Lowery, the Case for Nationalism, which a year later, so there's a proliferation of these, uh, of these themes. And I'm looking at from American Affairs, uh, Rob, I'm looking at what is conservatism by Hazon? And it's, it's so interesting. Here's an excerpt. The bedrock of the Anglo-American political order is nationalism, religious tradition. The Bible has a source of political principles and wisdom and the family. And interestingly, in this very long essay, he says, John Block. And, uh, you, you dated, I think very correctly, the, is roughly 16 89, 17 89 when the solution occurred. He's saying Locke was not the basis for American liberalism liberal. A good sense. And, and he, and he's citing, um, people like John Seldon and John for, and you look at the dates, and the dates are like 14th century <laugh>, 16th na names most people would not know. Speaker 1 00:25:42 Cause I think you could argue that they weren't very influential. And here's the key I find in the essay, them saying the key to their thinking was they denied the lockian view. That there were universal principles of reason available to all and as well universal rights. And, and, and so is that part of the tradition? Is that part of the argument you're hearing now? That they're basically saying, do not be cosmopolitan, do not be internationalists, do not be one world as cause that that assumes all humans, you know, have access to read rights. Have you heard this argument? It's, it's in, yeah, yeah, Speaker 2 00:26:26 Yeah. So, well, the funny thing I find about the national conservatives is that they have, especially the, what the American national services have a basic problem, which is the founding of America. The found, you know, the, the, the founding of America as it actually happened doesn't conform to what they want to argue for. So they have to sort of search around and try to find a different founding that fits better with their, with their, with their viewpoint as, so you're right that he finds all these guys from, you know, through two, 300 years earlier. Yeah. Uh, before America, or I think, uh, uh, who's the guy, uh, Sarah Buari was talking about, uh, going to the, uh, the Louisiana Territory, uh, you know, that was founded under the French Yeah. Uh, and finding things in there where, you know, basically it was founded under the French, under the, under the Louise, under the Kings, where you had this integral state where the, the state and and the church were, were wedded together, throw in an altar. Speaker 2 00:27:25 Uh, and he's looked to that as well. That's an alternative founding. And they, we could, we could go with that as our tradition. Uh, so here's where I think it's a good time to take a step back and talk about something that's other terms, uh, that are ambiguous. Yeah. So conservative and liberal, right? So, and liberal is the one that I'm really, I'm focused on. I'm, I'm on possibly a qu soic attempt, cuz this has been tried before. But I think the time's kind of ripe for it of, of, of reclaiming the word liberalism. Because I think that the biggest mistake the conservatives ever made was letting the left call themselves liberal. Right. So liberalism is, is original meaning meant advocacy of freedom. That's, you know, the word comes from the Greek root word for freedom. So it meant advocating a free society. So, and, and political scientists still use it this way and it is often used this way in international affairs. Speaker 2 00:28:13 We're talking about, uh, different kinds of social systems and, you know, authoritarianism versus liberalism. And it doesn't mean whatever the left happens to want right. Now, it doesn't necessarily mean the welfare state liberalism in this context means a free society. It means you have, you have individual rights, you have various, um, uh, you usually have representative government. You have a system where, you know, the, this power of the state over the individual is limited in some way. Now, you know, the, it's used in a very academic acumatic sense by the political scientists cuz it refers to, you know, your, a lot of European countries that have fairly big government in some respects, but which have some basic limits. And, you know, they have a certain, you know, freedom of speech and political freedom and representative government and various aspects that we would think of as a liberal society. Speaker 2 00:29:06 Uh, so, you know, that's different from, you know, whatever the favorite, you know, liberalism is used in, in popular parlance especially, you know, it's a confusing thing is only Americans use it this way. I actually tried to get a British author to argue, you know, um, I wanted to get a British author to write, and she's a little more sort of to the left on po on on economics. But I wanted her to write in favor of liberalism in, in the other sense. And she, she, she, I stumbled over it because in, in, you know, in the British context, liberal means pro free market. Yeah. And you know, in, in the, in, in Australia, the liberal party is the pro for market right wing party. Right. Europe general. So, you know, Americans have this weird thing we're on, we're the only ones for whom liberal and extreme liberal means basically a communist <laugh>. And you know, they, if you go to the communists, the funny thing is you actually talk to a real live communists who do they hate most? The liberals. Right. Because they are the ones who want, uh, freedom and individualism and, you know, they're not hardcore enough about, about the power of the collective over the individual. Speaker 1 00:30:08 Yeah. The concept and the concept became so adulterated in America, I I guess roughly about starting about a hundred years ago, that it was necessary for people to start referring to classical liberal, you know, as opposed, as opposed to contemporary liberal. And, and, but they're not forms of liberal that the second version was illiberal <laugh>. And then, uh, so I I like your attempt to reclaim it, uh, similarly, similarly the word progress mm-hmm. <affirmative> or progressive. Oh yeah. Cause you know how te how terrible that the status that the socialists would grab the word, uh, progressive as if they're for progress when they're actually for regress. But, uh, Speaker 2 00:30:43 Yeah. Uh, what is it, uh, Stephen picker has a line about how nobody hates progress more than progressives. Yeah. Speaker 1 00:30:48 <laugh>, right. So, so let, let me ask you whether, uh, just to give the best possible, I don't know, sympathy to these worries people who worry about people who basically just love America. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, love her traditions, worry that she's eroding, deteriorating I is the argument, uh, close the borders except no one coming in cuz they won't assimilate anymore. Right. They're not here to assimilate, they're not here to assimilate and, and embrace, but rather to pollute to, what is it called, uh, replacement theory. There's concern about that xenophobia. We hear them accused of that. What, what part of this Rob is, um, what might we be sympathetic to because we too love America and her ideas? Or, or is it just really, because it isn't really the same as the nationalism of the thirties with Hitler. Yeah. Italy. Make that distinction, if you will. And, and so what are we talking about here in terms of distinctions? Speaker 2 00:31:47 Yeah. So I wanna get to immigration in a second. Cause I think it's, it's okay. Speaker 2 00:31:50 No, it's really closely relevant to this. But I'm gonna start by talking about this oth another term. Conservatism. What does conservatism mean? Yeah. Right. So conservatism and, and, um, American conservatism has always been a, again, a weird version of conservatism compared to, you know, other countries because in the, in the American, you know, if you're trying to preserve the American system and the American id, American ideas and American traditions, well, our traditions are in a way radical. Yeah. Our traditions are liberal. Yeah. In that, in that broad political philosopher sense. Uh, so it's, it's very weird that, you know, that to be a, to be of an ameri, to be a, a true conservative in, in the sense of wanting to preserve the American idea and American systems of what's uniquely American, you also have to be a classical liberal. So, you know, that's a sense in which like somebody like George will is a con, you know? Speaker 2 00:32:43 And that the people who I think, you know, that's why I think, you know, I I came out, I I know you did out of the Reagan era where that was sort of the paradigm, uh, for a lot of conservatives is the idea that well, we are trying to, you know, reclaim the, um, the, the legacy of the, uh, of the founding fathers We're trying to reclaim this, this legacy of liberalism, a country defined by and based on individual rights. Yeah. And they were also, you know, relatively pro enlightenment. And I know that, you know, around this time in the sixties and seventies, there's a, um, I think Barnard Baylen came out with a book called The Ideological Origins, the American Revolution. Yep. It was very influential. And it was basically him going back and finding all the old pamphlets and all the old writings in not just Locke, but all the pamphlets here and people who were, um, active in America at the time and finding out what their ideas were. Speaker 2 00:33:36 And basically it's all these enlightenment ideas and enlightenment ideas about reason and about the indivi, uh, individual rights and, uh, free, you know, the freedom of the individual and you know, these and these Jefferson Jeffersonian ideas. And that that, so if you were American conservative, the odd thing is you are a traditionalist in favor of something that was a break from previous tradition <laugh> in, in, in, in certain important respects. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, so the thing is though, that a conservative overseas has generally been, you know, a, a European conservative, uh, you know, you get these weird things too. I remember, uh, shortly after the fall, the of the Berlin Walt's, the early nineties, somebody referring to the heart, conservative heart liners in, in Russia who were communists, right? Yeah. Cause you know, what they were trying to conserve was the Soviet, right. So it's all very relative. Speaker 2 00:34:27 But in, in, in a European contest, conservative has generally meant I'm in favor of some form of monarchy, or I'm in favor of, you know, ethnic, uh, uniformity. I'm in favor of whatever the traditional rules of society and identity of society was often religious. And this is at a time where, you know, especially in the 19, in the 20th century when, uh, Europe was rapidly, um, secularizing Yeah. Right. That they, they were trying to say, no, let's preserve the religious traditions of this country. And there were all sorts of, you know, I think, uh, there's some interesting things that happened. There were like school, quote unquote the school wars that went on Yeah. In, in, in, I think in Belgium or something like that where, uh, where they had, you know, the Catholic schools had been the traditional place. People were educated. And then you had these new public schools that came up that were secular and this war between, you know, should kids go to secular schools or Catholic schools. Speaker 2 00:35:22 And they came up with a compromise based on that. So that's the sort of, that's the sort of issue that is generally, and you think of like, you know, the jean or marine lappen in France. Um, now there are odd things though that happened. Like, for example, I was, I was an advocate of Brexit, of, of Britain coming outta the European Union. Um, not on the sort of nationalist traditionalist grounds, but on the grounds that I thought people would be freer and have more control over their lives, uh, without being part sort of subservient to the EU bureaucracy. Yeah. That Speaker 1 00:35:56 Was my, that was my view as well. Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 2 00:35:59 The European Union is another one of these maddening things where I think there's actually, the, the original idea behind it was terrific, which is it emerged out of the common market, this attempt to say, let's lower the, let's make it easier for people to trade and easier to people to, to work back and forth across these, these, uh, borders. Yeah. And also, especially after the fall of the Berlin Wall, there was a sense that, look, Europe has, you know, Europeans basically had tried to twice during the 20th century and then, and they almost got around to it a third time. They had tried to kill each other on mass. Yeah. So the idea was let's not do that ever again. So let's have, uh, this this transnational union where we all work together peacefully and we keep ourselves from going back to war ever again. Yeah. So, I, I sympathize with that, but it became, you know, it was being done by a bunch of, you know, sort of left wing status, big government set, central regulating types. And so it also became highly bureaucratized and centralized and not very answerable to the, to the, to the voters in all these individual countries. And so I think that's sort of the problem with the EU is that it is, it's a great idea, but implemented on sort of the wrong mind. Speaker 1 00:37:13 Yeah. And the Brexit people, of course, had a mix of these two and it was always hard to disentangle, Hey, I'm not with those guys. I'm with these guys. You and I on the liberalism side. Rob, I I want to ask you, I want to dig deeper on conservatism cuz uh, this is so fascinating just from the standpoint of objectivism, uh, object objectivism theory of concepts and what they capture and what they convey and how words can be used or misused package deals, you know, all that kind of stuff. Yeah. It, it's always interested me, and I challenge students at Duke, I'll say to them, you know, when you say liberal, it has the word in it, it has the value, however we define it as someone who says, I'm a liberal, they're telling you open or objective, I believe in objectivity. And then I say to them, so what are conservatives, uh, conserving? Speaker 1 00:37:58 And it's usually blank stares. Uh, and now if some of them say American values, American traditions, American principles, then, then I would say, well, why don't they come out for those princip? Why don't they name those principles and call themselves that? And here's, here's the speak to this, if you will. It's a kind of a paradox because conservatives are seen as intransigent, rock ribbed, fixed, unchanging, actually against change, against alteration. Right. But if all they're doing is conserving whatever their opponents have done over the last 20 years, they're actually a moving target, aren't they? They, they actually embody whatever the other side is doing, but with a lag. Yeah. Speaker 2 00:38:44 And that's, Speaker 1 00:38:45 Have you noticed, have you noticed this? It's very odd Speaker 2 00:38:47 That that is the longstanding criticism of, of conservatives is, is basically, you know, once something gets to be 30 to 50 years old, you're, Speaker 1 00:38:54 It's okay if it's Speaker 2 00:38:54 New, you're against it. Yeah. Once it gonna be 30 to 50 year olds old, you're in favor of it. Like, for example, look at, look at conservatives and social security, right? Yeah. Or the welfare state, you know, they will not, uh, they'll, they'll nibble around with reform of it at the edges. But if, you know, uh, the top conservatives right now, we're all like, no, we are never gonna touch Social security even as the system's about to go bankrupt. Yeah. Um, so yeah, that, and that's, that's, so the problem is, so the third sort of version of conservatism I would name Ocean, I think is actually the dominant one in practice, is conservatism. Really just is is not an ideology, it's an attitude. And the attitude is things were better when I was a kid. Mm-hmm. And then this, it's a well known bias that people have and people have studied this, they've measured it that, so what has to happen when you remember the past is you tend to forget a lot of the bad stuff and you remember the good stuff. Speaker 2 00:39:48 And so things that happened, 30, 40, 50, you know, things that happened when you were a a kid tend to look better than they really were. And often that's true too, because when we're kids, you know, we're not engaged with all the issues. Uh, we are often shielded from it by, you know, our parents, they don't let us know all the bad stuff that's happening in the world. So we tend to think, oh, everybody, you know, the nation was much more unified. Everybody agreed with each other, or, you know, people weren't so obsessed with politics or people didn't talk about sex as much. And it's like, well no, they didn't talk about sex around you cuz you were five years old. That's one of my, my, one of my pet peeves is that every baby boomer is convinced that nobody talked about sex before 1965. Yeah. Speaker 1 00:40:31 <laugh>. Right. Right. Cause Speaker 2 00:40:33 That's, that's where they came, that's when they got old enough to, to find out about it. <laugh>. Speaker 1 00:40:37 That's really, that's really cool. The whole, uh, the whole, I just thought no down nostalgia. The, the hel idea of nostalgia and, uh, in a, in a kind of biased way, misjudging. But, but how about this, Rob? I mean, if you ask someone, say in, uh, I'm trying to pick a good time, say before World War I, so 1913, if you asked an American, uh, about the nostalgia guy, they would say, oh my gosh, I'm so glad I'm living right now. It's so much better than, you know, the Conestoga wagons or whatever. Now we have trains, now we have this and that. We have cities and stuff. Isn't this, uh, the power of nostalgia, if you will, and therefore feeding into conservatism? Doesn't it heavily depend on whether the culture seems to be going up or down? I mean, if it's in a, if it's in a truly improving condition, say the century before World War I, um, people would not be nostalgic for a hundred years prior. But is it more plausible that they would say today, not because they're just getting older and you know, Frankie and get off my lawn and that guy, but that they actually do notice a decline? Speaker 2 00:41:45 Well, I, I'm gonna say a couple things about that, which is, um, I, you, I think you'd be surprised. Now on the other hand, you know, the say like 1920, you know, if you were looking at things 19 10, 19, 20, there was so much like vast visible progress in a way that perhaps has more hit you over the head visible, you know? Yeah. Transcontinental railroads and skyscrapers and all that. Yeah. The progress was more like spectacularly visual. So maybe it, it hit him more. But I really recommend, there's a guy, I've interviewed him a couple times, uh, Lu Lewis Anslow runs a, uh, a website called, uh, the Pessimists Archive. Ah. And what he does, he finds out there's no complaint people are making today about how these newfangled world is messing things up. There's none of those complaints that is new. They've all been made before about something that we consider totally innocuous. Like the bicycle was going to destroy things. Um, Speaker 1 00:42:38 Yeah. Or the tele, the telephone would end letter writing and Speaker 2 00:42:41 Yeah. Uh, or you know, the, if you think today, you know, what is the New York Times associated with, it's the famous New York Times crossword puzzle. Yeah. When he went back and found an article in the New York Times talking about how crossword puzzles are ruining and ruining everything <laugh>. Speaker 1 00:42:54 Yeah. Speaker 2 00:42:55 So the, the, this has always been a, a phenomenon about, you know, things were better in the past and these newfangled dimensions are just ruining everything. And you could find that from, you know, and you literally can find that they search all newspapers. You find that stuff going back every 20 years. Uh, I found a great one about how, um, was it today's men are a bunch of sissies and they're not real, real men, real tough masculine men like, like they used to be in my age. Yeah. And you can find one of those articles Yeah. Written it every single time throughout American history. It's, it's a, so it is a certain, there is a certain amount of that and, and also some of the nostalgia that happens right now. I mean, the thing that's astonishing to me is a lot of the people who are nationalist conservatives are more or less, you know, my age or, you know, give or take five or 10 years. Speaker 2 00:43:42 And there's a bunch of them. I was talking about how much better things were in the 1970s. And I'm thinking, do you remember in the 1970s, the seven and seventies were terrible? If you were to pick one decade out of the last hundred years to be nostalgic about, that would be the last one I would pick. You know? Cause it was rising crime and the hippies and uh, you know, tie dye and bell bottoms and the fashions were terrible. I mean, the, the economy was stagnant. There were gas lines. Uh, you, you had to stand the, you have to go wait in line to get gasoline cuz there were shortages, there was inflation. Everything was terrible in the seventies. But, you know, and I've noticed this in, in Donald Trump, cuz Donald Trump's not an ideological person. So he's not gonna have a really ideological version of conservatism. But you get to censor him sometimes that, you know, basically things from roughly 1973 to 1978, which is like the heyday of his youth. Right. That, that he has this sort of hazy, nostalgic view that everything was better then. And if we can only go back to what things were like for then, then, then the country would be much better. And so people will have nostalgia for times that were objectively worse, uh, in, in a lot of ways. Speaker 1 00:44:53 Now, let me ask you about this again, category of, um, the plausible giving, the, the best possible read Yeah. Of what these people are worried about. And I suppose someone were to say, you know, I'm really worried about losing my, uh, freedom, my agency, my autonomy, my sovereignty, say to the state within my nation. You know, maybe there's a centralization of power going on, that kind of thing. Right? Yeah. Well, if you blow this up into the global perspective, the argument would be, oh, and then I'm now really worried about losing America's sovereignty to, uh, international agencies. So the un mm-hmm. <affirmative> and the W H O and the wt O and a blah blah, blah. You know, that. And, um, that's not gonna work out well, not because I'm a provincial antico person, but because these foreign elements are not pro-American. They're asking for America to surrender her sovereignty in a way that I'm asked to surrender mine to Washington. Is that a plausible, uh, feeder fuel for national nationalist conservatism? Speaker 2 00:46:08 No, absolutely. A hundred percent. And I think that's the, that's what gives nationalist conservatism oxygen because people are looking for an answer to that. I mean, what you just described, I agree with all of that. I don't want America being, you know, absorbed by some of these international organizations because they are mostly based on highly status, uh, premises. Uh, you know, like the, a lot of these, uh, environmentalist agree, you know, uh, initiatives are coming from international agreements and international organizations that are trying to push them here. And a lot of them are anti-American or un-American in their outlook. Um, now. And so, you know, I think that the thing is that the best argument for the right has always been the left <laugh> because the left, the left manages the, they have an amazing ingenuity that no matter what happens, no matter what the right does, the left has always has this amazing ingenuity and coming up with something even more dreadfully unappealing, Speaker 1 00:47:04 <laugh> <laugh>, Speaker 2 00:47:07 You know, so like, you know, Bruce Jenner puts on a dress and you have to call him Caitlin and say he's a, he's a woman, you know, or that sort of thing. I mean, they come up with stuff that's just so insane that they are like, it's like they're deliberately trying to drive all normal, sane, rational people to the other side. And I think that the, the, the insulation we have to have against that though is that, well, you know, it's sort of like, you know, I don't wanna, now I don't wanna overblow this analogy cuz we're not in this situation today and I, but in, in the 1930s in Germany, you know, the biggest argument in favor of the Nazis was we're gonna save you from the communists. Right? Yeah. And it's the same sort of thing where you have two sides, right? And they're saying, well look, you know, we're not them. Speaker 2 00:47:49 And that's our big argument for us, right? And right. Uh, so just not being the left is, is, you know, you shouldn't, you don't, you shouldn't embrace national conservatives just because they're not the left. You should look at, well, what is the real answer? And you know, that's why I think this, this reclaiming the term liberal liberalism is important. Cuz if you define things in terms of liberalism, then your, your your, your category won't be left versus right. It will be liberal versus illiberal and, you know, liberal the proper sense of being appropriate. Right? Yeah. And so, and so it gets you out of that left right mindset and saying, well, the real alternative is do we have a liberal system or do we have an illiberal system either left ilial or right illiberal. Speaker 1 00:48:31 I love this. I love, I love your whole project of trying to reclaim liberalism. I'm trying to say I'm trying the same fight in academia. It is not very, it is not very easy. But by, by the way, you're right about the earlier paradox of if you're in a European, and if I'm in a, a seminar academic and there are foreigners, I use liberal, and they immediately think capitalism and freedom. It is remarkable. Now, America has, uh, messed this up entirely, by the way, by the way. Sometimes I will say something, you know, politan and international and the student will ask a professor, are you for world government? And I said, well, what kind of government it's I, when we got the United States of America, there were people existed saying, I don't, I don't want a federal level, I want the 13 states. And yeah, and you mentioned the European earlier, the project of, well, the United States of Europe, uh, why not, but why not would be, this is not 17 seven, the why not is the United States of Europe are gonna be socialists, are gonna be, they're not gonna be lock in America. So that's what you're emphasizing with so much. It isn't so much the level of, I get, I don't know the level of governance, is that what we're talking about, whether it's liberal or not. And Speaker 2 00:49:50 Yeah, it's, it's the question of what's the basic principle of government? And you know, so the thing, the thing that I know really what, here's why we're doing a hammer home, which is if you, we talked about nationalism being defined as the nation is the unit of politics. That, you know, the, it's not about the individual, it's not about the individual's freedom. It's about how you should serve the nation. Yeah. And it is collectivist. Yeah. And that's the, the common premise is yeah, that you have two versions of collectivism and, uh, now, you know, the most extreme version of this course was I just mentioned the Nazis versus the communists, where you had the idea that, you know, uh, Hitler says, uh, dubbi, you are nothing, your people is everything. Uh, and you have the, the communists then saying, well, yes, the in we agreed totally agree. Speaker 2 00:50:32 The individual should be totally subordinated to the proletariat, you know, to the good of the proletariat. Um, there's actually somebody said, you know, tried to get me somebody, I, it was an argument conversation, conversation with someone, and they're trying to come up with an example of a self contradictory term. And they said, well, a communist Nazi, that would be a self contradictory term. Yeah. And I said to, no, actually that was a well known phenomenon in the 1930s. They were actually called, um, the term used them as they were a beef steak Nazis, because they had the term B steak, Nazi this's. The term, the original term was in German. It was used by the Nazis to described communists who came over, because the idea is they were red on the inside and brown on the outside. Speaker 1 00:51:12 <laugh> Speaker 2 00:51:12 Brown isn't, you know, wearing the brown shirts. So they were wearing brown shirts, but they were red on the inside, so they were beef steak Nazis. So, you know, people Speaker 1 00:51:19 Went Speaker 2 00:51:19 Back and forth between the two quite frequently at the time. Speaker 1 00:51:22 Yeah. And, and the Nazis is a contraction, of course for national social. So, so when the, when the Soviets come along and say, well, we're against that because we're international socialists <laugh>. So, so they're both socialists and the, and the dispute is about whether you're national or international, it's not really a fundamental dispute is, but what's it, what's, so, what's so interest about Speaker 2 00:51:45 The further, the further ironing is the Soviets, the Soviets ended up basically, uh, enforcing Russian nationalism or, or Russian imperialism. They were nationalists too. Speaker 1 00:51:55 Yeah. And, and, and of course they could pose as well, we're the ones who believes in universal human, I'm not even gonna say rights, but liberation know it, it was workers of the world unite, not not workers of Munich, you know, and, and so interesting because Hitler is Aist, right? But he ends up invading a bunch of other countries violating a quote, international order. But on the grounds that I, I have found s in other countries. So the, so what you mentioned earlier, the ethnic tie, you know, the idea that nationalism is, well, where are all our ethnic people? Borders be damned. Now borders be damned. Same thing with Ukraine, right? They'll say, well, Crimea is like Russian. We get to invade if orders. Uh, that's part of this, that's part of the 1930s nationalism at least. But the, today's nationalism of the Trump variety, I I isn't it America first, we're not gonna engage in foreign wars, we're not going to be adventurous. That that is a bit d not a bit, that's a lot different than the Hitler type adventurism, right? Speaker 2 00:52:59 Oh yeah, it is. Um, I, unfortunately, I think, uh, a lot of my view of this is that a lot of the isolationism, uh, I don't use that term, but you know, the, the anti interventionism of Yeah, the American. Right. It, it's similar to the anti interventionism of the, of the left in the 20th century, which is they don't want to intervene because they're sympathetic to the other, to, to the people who we would intervene against. Right. So there's a lot of, um, you know, back then it was, you know, we don't want the America going off to Vietnam, not because we're against America, you know, uh, uh, being going outside as borders, but because we liked that the, or Vietnam <crosstalk>, we want the Communist Speaker 1 00:53:42 To win Hanoi, Hanoi, Jane. Yeah. We want to be a con to win. Yeah. <laugh>. Speaker 2 00:53:46 So there are a lot of nationalists who are very, you know, I think particularly with regard to the current war, they're very sympathetic to Russia cuz they see it as, uh, there's one particular version that rather extreme version they come across recently. A guy who you self-described reactionary, um, who, who wrote about how well we have to support, you know, Russia is a model, you know, and he heads to bets aib. He said Russia is a model. Yeah. Because what happened and that the big thing he cites is that after the collapse in the Soviet Union, uh, polls showed that Russians went from being like 30% Orthodox Christian to being 80% Orthodox Christian. And that shows this is that, you know, it's been a religious revival and that's why we have to support them cuz they have revived their traditional Christian views. Yeah. Uh, you know, and they're a vehicle for that. Speaker 2 00:54:34 And so it's that sort of thing. Idea of, if the goal is to revive traditional religion, revive, um, uh, you know, a traditional morality, then they look at Russia now, I think very in rose color, you know, it, it, Russia has always, you know, in, in the 20th century, Russia was the place where leftists looked with rose color glasses Yeah. And saw what they wanted to see. And, and a lot of people on the right are looking now and looking to Russia. And not all of them by way, it's, it's mostly goes the other way. But, um, some people on the right are looking to Russia and seeing it with rose color glasses as this is a model for reviving religion in in, in the culture. Uh, you, Speaker 1 00:55:12 You mentioned earlier, Rob, uh, nationalism. I think there's a very profound point on your part that nationalists of whatever stripe, see not the individual but the nation as the unit of value or the unit of account, so to speak, that should be focused on. And it, it, it, it strikes me as like an intermediate position between, well it shall it be the international realm or should, should it be the individual or the family? No, we got something right in between, roughly in between nationalism. But I ask you this, have you noticed that the nationalists, the ones I read, they will continually, repeatedly denounce what they call hyper individualism. Yes. And to an object to an objective is ear, uh, you know, we love individualism. We know that the trader principle tells us, this does not mean atomism. It does not mean being a, uh, uh, a hermit, you know, or antisocial. But, uh, the, the emphasis they place on the family as the, it's not just the nation, but the family unit. Part of religion part of it. Do you think that's feeding their love of nation? It's like coming outta what I'm used to call family's mini collectives. It, it, they, they resist the individual. The family is a collective. Collective. Is that part of a continuum they're onto, Speaker 2 00:56:33 Yeah. Uh, you broke up a little bit there, but I think I know where you're going with this. So yeah, there's been a longstanding odd argument from conservatives that they say, well, socialism doesn't work anywhere except in the family. Ah. And the family is their example of socialism. And, you know, I don't know. My family doesn't work that way. I, I don't have the, I don't have the authority of a, of a of it. I, I wish I had the author sometimes wish I had the authority of an authoritarian ruler. And I don't, uh, <laugh>, I've got a couple very independent teenagers right now. Uh, and and they're not rebellious in the way other teenagers are. They're mostly like, like they in delight in finding any, any error I make in grammar or in history or something like that. And then correcting it very loudly Yeah. Speaker 2 00:57:15 And reminding me that I got it wrong. Yeah. Uh, but the, the point is that, uh, they've had this idea, you, the family is basically the unit of collectivism and it's, and Yeah. Right. But I think it's also that they see the family as the way that religious values are inculcated. And I, so I think the biggest, it, it goes back to this issue. And then I wanna tie into immigration here because, um, and I think we probably should take question, you know, go to the audience in a minute. Yeah, yeah. We'll, yeah. But, uh, I wanna tie in immigration. That's the big loose thread we have. And I wanna tie it into this issue with the family. Yeah. Because conservatives tend to have the idea that, that they, they tend to have this idea that values are not spread through ideological means. They're not spread through education, they're not spread through, uh, persuasion. Speaker 2 00:58:01 They're not spread through adopting ideas. They're spread by being inculcated in you in year five. And this is like, call it the Sunday school model for, uh, for, for spreading culture, right? Is it, which is, and by the, the, the left is totally adopted this Sunday school model, cuz that's why they like to control the schools, right? Yeah. Because is, if, if we drum this in your head, uh, un until you're seven years old, allegedly you will, you will therefore be, you know, the rest of your life, you'll be under its sway and you'll never be able to disagree with it. Now, there's a lot of evidence is is it true <laugh>, uh, is how we got here, by the way, in this secular age, is a bunch of people raised religious who run re rebelled against it or, or left it or drifted away in some way. Speaker 2 00:58:43 But that's sort of their idea, is that if, if we just have people properly enculturated and going to Sunday school every, every, every Sunday, uh, up to the age of seven, then we can pass our values on. And I think that's part of the reason they're so afraid of immigrants. Now, I wanna say some of, I know some of these people I think, you know as well, some of the most American people I know are immigrants. Uh, they're people. And it is because they're people who, you know, they left their homes. They, they, uh, left their societies. They came from, they came to America in search of opportunity, in search of the ability to, to make your own decisions. They have greater freedom to, to make something of yourself, to, you know, to, to pursue the American dream. And so they have adopted American Americanism. Speaker 2 00:59:27 Uh, there's a, a guy my wife's worked with who's Mexican. He's a Mexican immigrant, he's an American citizen now. Uh, she did a little work for him and he paid her and his checks had the American flag flowing across them, you know, <laugh>. And, and he's obviously very proud of this. You know, there's all sorts of people who have come here from other countries who have adopted our values. Meanwhile, if you go to like a Bernie Sanders, if you wanna talk about socialists, you go to see a bunch of communists in Brooklyn or go to a Bernie Sanders rally, and you're likely to see a bunch of old white Amer, you know, an old, old white European, uh, Americans whose, whose families have been here for generations and generations. So, you know, because ideologically they went off to college and they got, you know, pumped full of, of left wing ideas and uh, and, and, and were converted to those. Speaker 2 01:00:16 So the idea that somehow as immigrants who are wrecking things, you know, I, I I found really little evidence that it's immigrants who are wrecking things. Uh, it's, it's, it's, you know, we've done it to ourselves. We, we, all the problems we have are our own damn fault. It's not the immigrants. But to understand that, you have to be able to, you have to be, have the confidence to say, this is an intellectual battle. It's an ideological battle, and we have better arguments, and therefore we should, we should be winning. We can go out and win the arguments. But if you're a Sunday school model, which is the only way we can win, is if you, you know, if, if we take our kids to Sunday, if if you shield people from all outside influences and, and, uh, give them only these ideas and these values, then you, you're, you're going to lose that battle eventually. Speaker 1 01:01:01 I like that distinction, Rob and I, and it reminds me also of the discussion we had earlier about nostalgia on immigration. Now, I, if it feels, I think to the nationalists, if they're coming into Ellis Island now we're talking about a different time, right? Yeah. 1900 because they're coming to the land of opportunity and freedom, not the welfare state. There isn't any welfare state in 1910. There's no central bank, there's no income tax. And people worry today that it's a magnet for parasites. It's a magnet for those who want to get on the welfare state. I, I think I agree with you largely, these are still people who want freedom and opportunity. But I can see why people might say the immigrant coming to America circa 20 20, 20 23 is not the same as the one that, because it's not the same America. So we're gonna, Speaker 2 01:01:51 I I I think though that, I mean, there's some good, uh, I've, I've talked a lot to Alex naa, who's, uh, I thinks a Cato who's a, a, you know, works this issue of, of immigration. Yes. And there's a lot of evidence that, you know, the people who come here are very entre. They start businesses, they're entrepreneurial. Oh yeah. They don't, they're, they don't, they don't, they're not criminals at a higher rate, depending on how you look at the data. They actually are criminals at a lower rate. Uh, they're not on welfare at a higher rate. So there's a lot of evidence that that's actually not true. That it's the same. You know, and you know, by the way, you know, I'm very, I've looked into occasionally, you know how people got hysterical about the Irish and the Polish, you know, my fore bearers coming over. Speaker 2 01:02:30 Yeah. Yeah. And one of the big arguments like a hundred, 120 years ago is, and you find old political cartoons on this, is that all these eastern Europeans are socialists and they're all coming here and they're bringing socialism, or if you remember the Sacco and Zeti trial. Yeah, right. You know, these Italians who, Italian anarchists who had come over and this was supposed to represent all these Italian immigrants. And of course, now you have, you know, the, somebody said America is great at, at, at assimilating people and turning them into Nativists <laugh>. Right. You know, that the grandparent, the grandparent, the grandchildren of the, uh, of the, the people who were dangerous radicals coming from overseas, their grandchildren are the ones who say, oh, those immigrants weren't like the ones that we had. They're they, yeah. Right. Speaker 1 01:03:13 I remember facing the same discrimination when I immigrated from Massachusetts to North Carolina, <laugh>, uh, when the North Carolinians heard that I, you know, this, right? When the North Carolinians heard that I was a Massachusetts professor, they were convinced that I was coming to North Carolina to turn it into Massachusetts. And I said to them, no, no, I'm fleeing Massachusetts cuz you guys are freer. I'm not gonna change. I'm not gonna change this place. That seems to me the difference. It's interesting. I, I, I teach, uh, that's the, the definition of the state so interesting on immigration, especially in borders. Cuz Var Max Var, the famous sociologist has the famous definition which Ayn Rand endorsed, basically. Yeah. So I'm, I'm cit I'm citing his definition, which you'll, it'll sound familiar cuz it's rands as well quote, the state, an institution with a monopoly over the legitimate use of force in a particular territory, unquote. So clearly is the suggestion of borders, right, Rob. But I think what you're saying is you, you can have definitive borders and still have a policy of letting most people in, you know, so long as they're not diseased or dangerous or terrorists. And so it's not open versus closed borders. It's something like managed borders on some principle. Speaker 2 01:04:28 Well also, you know, the open border's argument, uh, kind of makes me, it's, it's like the people who have arguments about whether you could have, you should have any taxation at all. I'm like, well, when we get to the point where we're arguing about that, yeah. Know, Speaker 1 01:04:40 We're already, Speaker 2 01:04:41 I I'll retire because I don't care anymore. You know, if we could get tax, if we just get taxes below 10% of, of the economy, you know, I'd be happy and I I can go retire and, and, and go write books on history or go fishing or whatever, uh, <laugh> because, you know, the job will have been done. And again, you know, the issue is, I, you know, the, the current issue is not open borders. The current issue is do we have a highly restrictive, I mean, historically by American standards, a relatively restrictive system of immigration right now where very few people can, can legally immigrate. And that's why we have large, so much illegal immigration is because we've made it so hard. And you know, it, it's hard for the guys who are coming here to be framers and, and bricklayers. Yeah. It's even hard for them. I mean, there's, the real insanity is you have the tremendously, um, talented people coming here. Yeah. Who a science system. I know a sculptor who went through the immigration process and how all the hoops she had to go through that. You know, we're keeping out the ver you know, the people who are clearly the best, the best and highly talented for keeping them out. Speaker 1 01:05:46 Yeah. I think we also have to remember that they're fleeing places that are very status, that are very redistributionist. It's a lot of work and a lot of risk to go to another country, leave your family, whatever. So whether it's two, whether it's 1910 or 2010, these people are coming by looking at the differential. It's rather the differential. Right. And yes, Amer yes, America has changed, but whoever's coming to America is typically coming because they expect a better life. Meaning they're less likely, they're not likely to be a parasite. Those borders need to be managed. They, they shouldn't be so inhumane. All right. You wanna take questions from other than me? Um, Clark? Yeah. Speaker 3 01:06:25 Clark Speaker 2 01:06:26 Is first. Speaker 1 01:06:26 Right. Thanks for all that. Rob, go ahead Clark. Speaker 3 01:06:30 Yes. Thank you so much guys for doing this. I'm really enjoying this. You guys should do this more often, but you bounce ideas off of each other. Speaker 1 01:06:38 Rob is great. Rob is great. Speaker 3 01:06:40 Go. Yeah. I just wanted to ask though, I, I don't mean to like, I'm to sound like I'm giving the nationalist conservatives, uh, national conservatives a pass, but how much of this do you think is just a reflection to all the anti-Americanism, you know, anti, uh, 1619 project, you know, biological males competing in women's sports, you know, the whole non, you know, drag, drag queen story hour. So these, these national conservatives, like everyone else today in America, they don't really believe fundamental ideas are important. So they think that in order to counter all that, the antidote is God and God. In other words, more altruism, just God and country and wave the American flag. That's the antidote to all this, you know, all this post-modernism and critical theory that, that we see that's just so prevalent even here, down here in Texas. It's, it's extremely pre well, especially here in Austin, Texas. So, yeah. So I, I don't mean to give the, the nationalist conservative the nationalist conservatives a, a pass, but, but you know, since they don't believe in fundamental ideas, they think this is the antidote. Speaker 2 01:07:48 Well, yeah, I, I, I actually, I mean, a hundred percent agree that somebody needs to punch the hippies. I mean, <laugh> hippie punching is the term that's often used for this in politics. That, you know, the, that the, the left is so obnoxious that somebody actually wants you to come out. I think this came out of the, oddly out of John McCain's campaign in, in, in, uh, 2008 where he said something about punch the hippies and that, that the, the left can be so obnoxious that people want somebody who's gonna punch the hippies. And I <laugh> I kind of, I I sympathize with that too. They're infuriating. But part of it too, I think, you know, like I said earlier, Richard and I, you know, we, we are more from the Reagan era. So we remember the time when you had, you know, the original hippies, uh, uh, the original wave of hippies and you had everything go to the left and everything became crazy. Speaker 2 01:08:34 And it was, I think, even more anti-American than it is today. Agreed. In terms of, you know, the, the whole Vietnam, you know, ho was it, uh, ho ho ho chi min ho chi min is going to win, is was a chant used by anti-war rallies in the sixties and seventies. Yeah. You know, where they were basically in favor of America's enemy in the war, very openly. Um, so at the time though, what we had as the response to that, as the backlash against that was Ronald Reagan, who was basically a classical liberal. Now not a very, not super consistent, uh, you know, he was a politician <laugh>. So, but, but by the standards of the age, you know, I, I know Richard and I are on the same side of thinking that, that, uh, Reagan didn't get enough credit. But, um, yeah, yeah. You know, he had, he had his faults, but by the standard of his era, he was way far out pro classical liberal compared Speaker 1 01:09:25 Yeah. Thatcher and I think, uh, Thatcher as well. Speaker 2 01:09:28 Yeah. So if you wanna backlash against the left Yes, absolutely. And, and you know, this gender stuff is totally, especially is is, I mean this gender stuff is particularly, I think particularly I annoys people because it's one of those things where they, like, they really work hard to try to get you to, to say something that you, that is obviously not true. So there's like a, it's an epistemological insult that's in, in, in a lot of the gender stuff that they, you know, when they say Bruce Jenner is a woman, they're like, they're trying to get you something that you can see with your own two eyes. It's very obviously not true, but they're gonna say, you have to affirm this. You have to say this or else, you know, will destroy your life. Um, their power to do that is actually over greatly overestimated. But, you know, they do get people to fold on that. So, um, you know, I think that creates the sense that we need, need a backlash. But the question is a backlash in favor of what, you know, what are you going to go to as the answer to that? And we've had much better answers to it in, in, in past iterations of, of, of the, of the political rights. Speaker 1 01:10:29 Yeah. And, and Rob and I have a great colleague, Steven Hicks, who's written a book on post-modernism and post-modern. I, I think, uh, Clark, to the extent you're referring to, Hey, these people are reacting against crazy arbitrary relativism. Anything goes black is white up is down, wet is, and it's almost, as Rob said, it's almost like they're punking you. It's almost like a Ashton Kutcher show, you know, punked, uh, we're gonna say this right to your face now what kind of humiliation are you gonna accept now? And and the alternative to relativism would be some kind of fixity absolutism, either or black and white. And interestingly objectivism has that Yeah. I mean it's not dogmatic, but it's certainly not relativist. Right. It's certainly not subjectivist. And what I think Rob and I are so frustrated about is we understand this yearning for rejecting relativism and post modernism in favor of some kind of fixity. But they go right to religion cuz they, religion does give them fixity and dogma. Here's the rule commandments. It's the way it is. And it's so sad because there is an alternative to relativism, which does not, you know, require dogmatism. It does not require a skepticism. So interestingly, because the post-modern, if modernity, you know, rob modernity to them means the enlightenment. Yeah. So, so the postmoderns want to go get rid of the enlightenment, obviously. Right. But the religionists are basically pre-modern. Their, their view is go medieval <laugh>. Speaker 2 01:12:00 Well, and Speaker 1 01:12:01 We're the only ones left saying, uh, could we please be modern? And if you, Speaker 2 01:12:04 And, and, and if you go to some of the nationalist intellectuals today, they're actually kinda postmodern in the sense that Yeah. Their view is itself, um, relativists in the sense that they say there is no universal principle. Yeah. Cause that would be nationalist if there's a universal principal applies to everybody that's internationalists. Right, right. They basically have, it's the kind of the haal approach where Speaker 1 01:12:24 Yes, yes. Where Speaker 2 01:12:26 It's relatives to your nation. So they're, it's if, if you're an American, you have a certain culture that's appropriate to you. If you're not, if you're, uh, Israeli, you have a certain culture that's appropriate to you. If you're Russian, you have a certain culture that's appropriate to et Yes. Speaker 1 01:12:39 Every, Speaker 2 01:12:40 Every nation has its own and they tie in a lot to sort of the anti-colonial left. I know with that. Oh, we don't want to be, you know, colonized intellectual by, by western concepts. Speaker 1 01:12:52 Right. Okay. Monica, you're next. Speaker 4 01:12:55 Hi. So I guess I, I want us to be careful about not framing, um, conservative values as medieval Jackie too. What's, what's medieval about the nuclear family and wanting fathers to be present in their children's lives and giving parental rights back to parents so schools don't teach gender ideology and little Tommy comes home from school saying, I'm Susie now mom, and you've got to not misgender. Like, like I'm confused. Speaker 1 01:13:31 Yeah. Go, go ahead Rob. I, so I talk about, I feel, I feel I feel guilty now for not having defended the family cuz she's writing certain Oh yeah. Speaker 2 01:13:38 I, I I mean, I I like to say I'm, I'm, I'm an atheist who's, who's strongly committed to family values. Speaker 1 01:13:44 Yeah, me too. Yeah. Me Yeah, me too. Speaker 2 01:13:47 But, but, um, in the sense, so, and this is, I think goes to exactly what we were talking about earlier, that, you know, the people see that these things are happening that are bad and they want an answer to it. So what I say is what's, so, there's nothing medieval about the family per se, and there's certainly nothing medieval about, um, parental rights or I would say parental freedom, uh, a big advocate. My answer to this is school choice is really the answer to this that we should be having. And it's actually picked up, it was this crazy libertarian idea, you know, 50 years ago, and it's actually picked up and been implemented a lot of places, some school choice programs. So if you don't like what's going on in the public schools, you have a voucher or you have some sort of tax credit or something you could use to go find a school that will reflect your values. Speaker 2 01:14:29 Um, now, by the way, a lot of people are gonna use that to send their kids to highly leftist the schools that are way left more leftist than the public schools, but still, you know, they have that choice. And you can go, go the opposite direction, but the medieval part, so this tends, you know, there's different, there's, there's different versions of conservatism that going on here. And the medieval part is you have, some of these people are literally arguing against separation of church and state. They're arguing for a unity of church and state. And some of them are specifically looking for like a Catholic, uh, the Catholic church is going to basically be, uh, the official state religion. And that's the part that's medieval in the, in a very literal sense of, you know, the, the Middle Ages was the last time, basically prior to 1500 was the last time that you had, you know, one religious viewpoint that had a monopoly that, um, uh, that was enforced by, uh, by the government of every, you know, pretty much every country in Europe. Speaker 2 01:15:26 So that's the, that's the thing that's medieval about it, is this idea that, and, and also the sense that that rights are about are, are traditionalists. That, that what rights you have are given to you by tradition rather than by your, the nature of man. And that's actually a fascinating issue. I know I only just indicate it now. Um, it's something you, you Richard, you know Brad Thompson? Yeah. He wrote a great book called America's Revolutionary Mind, where he basically takes apart the Declaration of Independence Yeah. And goes into the intellectual history of every little part of it. And a fascinating little section of that because he talks about how at the beginning, the stamp acted crisis, all the stuff that leading up to the revolution, the Americans start talking about the rights of Englishmen. And they're appealing to traditions that go back to the Magna Carta, go back to the Anglo-Saxons. Speaker 2 01:16:13 They're, they, so the, the rights that you have are given to you by various traditions that have been negotiated among social groups over time and over the period of this crisis, as they start to become more and more engaged in this issues, there's a shift that goes on where they stop talking about the rights of Englishmen and they start talking about the rights of man. Yeah. And that's cause they're becoming more philosophical and saying, wait a minute, these are universal principles. It's not just Yeah. An English tradition that we're going to appeal to. It's, we're, we're appealing to this. Yeah. To the, to the, to the philosophical ideas and the principles. And so that's the other part about it that, you know, coming outta the Middle Ages into the enlightenment, there is very much this idea that your rights shouldn't depend on whatever the traditional arrangement of your society. They are, they should transcend that. They should be enforced against, you know, we should get rid of some of the traditions, uh, not necessarily all of them, but some of the traditions if they are, you know, contrary to your rights. And so that's the other part that I think is the difference. Speaker 1 01:17:14 Yeah. I I that I, Monica, your point about the nuclear family is so important. I, I, uh, over the time, I think I've changed my view on this, but I was raised Catholic, Massachusetts big family, and the parents stayed together. They never got divorced. Now, am I a Catholic? No. But Catholicism is a fo a crude form of philosophy. And then the family, I, I think you notice, especially if it's big family, how do they govern this place? Who, how do they, you learn governance, you learn hierarchy, you learn. And then if it's a family that's good, it's preparing you to leave the nest, not stay there, not stay in your mother's basement. They're there to create an independent being who can go off on their own. And if they differ with the parents. So if that kind of thing is what their family is, that's wonderful. I think that is a wonderful kind of institutional pillar for the free society. And to the extent that's been eroded or to the extent the state has substituted itself, you know, the, the political paternalism we have today where state is parent, citizen is child. Yeah. They, they infantalize they literally overtly infantalize citizens in public schools. So that they're craving, uh, the social safety net and the nanny state is, is awful. It's, it's totally terrible. Okay. Our founder, David Kelly. David, do you wanna chime in? The founder of the Atlas Society? Speaker 5 01:18:33 Yeah. Uh, thank, thanks to both you, uh, you Richard and, and Rob, um, for a very illuminating session. Uh, there's a lot I could say, but I want to just make one point, um, I think partly an answer to, to Monica, uh, and that is that, um, there is a, um, a theme in, let me if I can say this without, you know, it sounds like a funny phrase. Conservative, uh, traditional conservatism, going back to Edmond Burke, that, uh, in fact this is explicitly Burke's view in the, um, he was, Burke was a ni late 17th century, late 18th century writer. Uh, his famous book was, um, uh, about the French Revolution. And he, uh, anyway, his, the point that's relevant to Monica's, uh, question about the family, it traditional conservatives said, said that human reason is weak and human passions are strong and unruly and need control. Speaker 5 01:19:42 That's why we need ethics. That's why we need virtues. Cause the eth the ethics here are, are Christian and involve a lot of sacrifice and, uh, giving up of things. But how do we, how do we become good people? How do we acquire virtues? Well, we can't do it on our own. We need incentives to strengthen our, the weakness of our reason and disincentives to follow our, our passions. And that can, that the family is where that starts. The whole society's involved ultimately. But that's the society's where it starts. So the, in that view, the, the family, the, the role of family is mainly to, um, inculcate morality by parental, um, you know, encouragement and, um, the punishment to get us on the right track. We can't do it on our, uh, individually on our own. And I think that's, that's long been a part of conservatism. It's not anything. So in, in rejecting that view as I think Robin and, and, uh, Richard both do, the objectivism in general does, uh, is it says nothing about the family per se. You know, I agree. It's a great institution. But, um, it's the, the particular conservative view of that role of the family as the first point where we become socialized, civilized. Hmm. Speaker 2 01:21:17 Well, you know, I I, I have observ observation to make about this based on my own kids. Uh, so I'm, I'm a big fan of Montessori education. I think a lot of object. There's a huge number of objectives who have started Montessori schools and are Montessori teachers. So it's kind of a thing. Um, but I'm a big fan of Maria Montessori's approach to education. And the thing is that the whole essence of the Montessori approach, and my kids have both gone through it and, and it's been terrific for them. The whole essence of the Montessori approach is you're developing the independence of the child. Speaker 5 01:21:48 Yeah. Speaker 2 01:21:48 You're depending their ability to regulate themselves, to direct themselves. Yeah. And it's very much not in the spirit of, because I said, so, you know, do this because I said so, or follow orders. A lot of, uh, education into the public schools, you know, there's secular public schools, they're run by the state, but they're run along this old sort of old fashioned model of, the purpose of the school is to teach you how to follow orders and how to go from one, how to go from, uh, one place to another when the bell rings. And how to, how to repeat, you know, the, the, the catchphrases and the, the things that we put into your head. And they as like a factory model where it's like an assembly line where, where think a knowledge is being installed in your head as opposed to a place where you go and learn how to, how to think for yourself and be independent. Speaker 2 01:22:33 And that's the, I think the thing I love about the Montessori method, uh, by the way, and, and I've noticed this during the pandemic, that when the schools were shut down, a lot of the public school kids floundered and they just, they could not handle remote education. And I saw a lot of the Montessori kids sort of dealt with it in strike cuz they were already used to being in charge of and directing their own education. Right. They're already used to taking initiative. Now, our school also because it wasn't a public school, was not closed down for very long <laugh>. They didn't, they, they, they turned in a dime and, and, and, um, adjusted to it, uh, more quickly. But the point is that, you know, for the time that they were not in school, they did better because they had that self-directed quality. And that's sort of the issue of parenthood, which is, and I love Richard Vanishing point that I'm gonna have to think about more, which is, you know, the parent in the family is like the ultimate paradigm of the independent person, the independent adults who can make his own decisions. Speaker 2 01:23:34 Right? So it's, you know, it's not that the state is the parent and we're all the children. Part of the point of the family is you will reach 18, you will reach adulthood, and at that point you will be independent. You're gonna be able to make your own decisions and start your own family and be the one who's in charge. So the whole point of Montessori education, the whole point of parenthood is you're raising someone to get to the point where, not where he will simply, you know, follow whatever rules you put in his head for the rest of his life. But that will, he'll be able to think for himself and make his own decisions and be an independent adult. Speaker 1 01:24:07 Yeah. My father, my father's favorite expression from the time I was, I don't know, 13 or so, is he said, check out time is 18. What do you mean? Is this a hotel? He said, absolutely. This is not your home. It's my home. And I'm, and I'm preparing you, you prepare yourself. You're leaving at 18. And I certainly did. Steve, you have a question for Rob? Speaker 6 01:24:26 Yeah. Rob, um, you know, you is addressing, uh, the idea of immigration. Um, it's my understanding that United States takes in more immigrants than any country in the face of earth right now, coupled with the fact that we see total chaos in just absolute uncontrolled crossings that are southern border. We have no mechanism to screen. We have no mechanism to say who's coming here or what's going on. Uh, and and coupled with the fact, you know, some people in this country have more invest. My people come to this country in the late 16 hundreds on both sides. And they, they put blood, sweat and tears. One, my grandfather served with George Washington in the Revolutionary War. Some people have more invested in this experiment and they, they don't see anything wrong with all the, the generations that put blood, sweat, and tears into the building of this country to have some kind of mechanism to make sure that it's not arbitrarily wrecked. And, um, I just don't see anything wrong with that, Speaker 2 01:25:39 Rob. Okay. So let me deal a couple things with that. Uh, one is, uh, you know, the fact that your parents came, your, your ancestors came back here in the 16 hundreds. They put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into this. But so did a lot of the immigrants who have come along. I mean, so did the, you know, my grandparents and, and great grandparents who came here. Uh, uh, so did, so a bunch of the people who have come here more recently, they've, they've worked very hard. Oftentimes they've disrupted themselves. They've been, um, uh, refugees or, or you know, coming from war torn places. They've lost everything. And they've come here. And what they have when they get here is something they built up by their own, by their own work. You know, they're not coming here and taking something from you. They're adding something of their own. Speaker 2 01:26:24 Um, what was it, uh, uh, Thomas Jefferson wrote about the, uh, when he was writing this. So he was writing this against King George cuz he said, you know, look, it wasn't the government that brought us, it wasn't the British government that brought us Americans and, and, and made America work. He says, you know, America was, was founded and firmly established by the effort of the people who came here. And he says, what for themselves? They fought for themselves. They won. And for themselves alone, they have a right to hold. That was the, the line that he uses. It's growing these great lines. It's in, uh, a summary view of British Amer, uh, the rights of British America, uh, which he wrote before the Declaration of Independence. And anyway, so the point is that he said, you know, it wasn't the collective that did this, it was the individuals that did this. Speaker 2 01:27:07 And I think we should offer the same deal to anyone who comes. Now you come here and you work, you start a business, you know, you, you, um, bring your talent here and create something and you too can add to this greatness of America. I think we're the myopic part is that there's this huge amount of talent. Here's a great an example, um, 5g. So we'll go plenty. Well, how, how is the Chinese are, are, are building a lot of this equipment that this is gonna use for 5g. That sort of newest, greatest, best, fastest, uh, telecommunications. Well, one of the patents that, one of the crucial patents being used for that is from a, a Turkish scientist who studied in the US came up with this important idea, mathematical idea as a graduate student, couldn't get a visa. So he went back, he was sent back to Turkey and then ends up selling his patents to the Chinese. Because, you know what, what choice? We kicked him out. We didn't let him stay here. You know, he would've been working for an American company that would've had the patent if he'd stayed here. So again, we, we are, we're by saying, oh, well you know what my parents did 300 years ago, we're ignoring what some new person coming here could do now that would make this country better and more prosperous. So I think it's, it's, but Speaker 1 01:28:21 Lemme ask you this question, Steve. Uh, Steve, Steve, we're gonna have to cut it off there cause we only have two more minutes. But that was a great, really great question and I, I just want to close with, um, alerting people to, uh, first of all, as we said at the outset, make sure you subscribe to the T Zinsky letter. It's just fabulous. And Rob's other work at Symposium, which I think is on CK right Rob also on and Discourse magazine. But to get all these things, if you can't remember, just go to the atlas society.org and look for about and scholars and and fellows and you'll see him there. And then also, if you are, if you can do this, man, you really should go to this. We are as, uh, Rob and I and, and David Kelly and others Golds Gold Summit, the Atlas Society is having at Nashville, Tennessee, July 27 to 29. If you know students, uh, they can be actually up until I think age 27 or something. It can be more than students can go and, or if you're a potential donor, you can go. But, um, check that out. Go to our website and check that out because, uh, Rob will be speaking at that. David will be speaking on, get real objectivity and objectivism. That's, uh, that's one of the talks. And then, and Rob will be speaking. Uh, what's your topic, Rob? I'm looking the virtue of selfishness and the selfishness of virtue. Yes. Speaker 2 01:29:42 That's one of them. And there was about art, about the objective and Speaker 1 01:29:45 About art. Exactly. Right. So go to the Atlas Society and um, um, see if you can get to that event. You'll love it. It's gonna be very dynamic. It's gonna be very, uh, fun as well. And it's only two or three days and I'll be there as well. We're welcoming you there. Uh, Rob, uh, I learned a lot. I always learned a lot from your writing. You are so tied into the current literature and the movement that conservatism. Any last thoughts on this has more to do with our relat call it our relationship with conservatives. <laugh>. I I think you wouldn't say they're a lost cause. Are, are they, were the allies. How would you classify what we do with conservatives now? Speaker 2 01:30:24 Well, you know, the conservative movement contains multitudes. It's always been many things. It's always been a co ideological coalition. So I briefly flirted with calling myself a constitutional conservative at one point. Yeah. Cause I'm like, I can get behind conserving the constitution. Yeah. Um, but I think that it, it's your question, the thing you brought up, which is conservatism means, well what are you trying to conserve? It can mean differently depending on what you're trying to conserve. Right. As what we need is Americanism, we need, you know, conserving what America was originally about and understanding that, which is, it was a liberal society, it was a, uh, enlightenment society. And then one thing that I think answers what, uh, the fellow was just talking about, how do we preserve this is, you know, Reagan's point. We're, we're one generation away. We're always one, you know, immigrants, like all immigrants, we are always the, the ultimate immigrants are are children. Speaker 2 01:31:12 Right. They're, they're, they're coming along and they're going to, they are going to replace us. That is the real replacement that's happening. They're going to replace us. And so, you know, having the ideas and having, understanding the ideas and understanding the history and understanding what it is that made this country great in terms of the ideas that were, that were, that we're embraced, and how we can improve those ideas and make them better. That's the important thing, uh, to, to make sure that that goes to the next generation. And I think that's the thing that, that hasn't been done then things need, needs to be fixed. Speaker 1 01:31:42 Wonderful. Rob, thank you again. Thank you my friend. Uh, excellent, excellent stuff. Thank you all for joining. We'll talk to you later. Speaker 2 01:31:50 Yeah. Thanks everybody for coming. This has been great.